Audit Service to conduct procurement, revenue, construction audits …to check financial leakages

Mr Daniel Domelevo,Auditor-General

The Ghana Audit Service will soon begin procurement, revenue and construction audits this year, to help check financial leakages and protect the public purse, the Auditor General Daniel Yaw Domelevo has hinted.

To this end, he said plans were far advanced to award a contract for the acquisition of equipment, including a machine to test the thickness of asphalt roads.

Speaking at the fifth quadrennial delegates’ conference of the Audit Service Divisional Union under the theme “The role of the state auditor in protecting the public purse,” Mr Domelevo said, in as much as the service wanted to protect the public purse and fight corruption, the service wanted to ensure value for money with the procurement, and construction audits as well.

Mr Domelevo indicated that, as part of the service’s mandate to protect the public purse without fear or favour, it had become very necessary to embark on various forms of audits including the payroll audit of the public sector which started in 2018 and yet to be completed.

He noted that, the payroll audit was also intended to sanitise the public sector payroll system by identifying the over age workers and illegal people who were still in the system in order to create employment opportunities for the graduate youth who were yet to be employed.

Mr Domelevo said the service was going to collaborate with the Ghana Revenue Authority in conducting the revenue audit in order to block all the leakages in the revenue generation system.

He urged staff of the service to eschew unprofessionalism and untimeliness as accuracy and quality of their work was very important.

Mr Domelevo advised the staff to work hard and make sure they did not use their privileges to settle scores with people as the outcome of their work could change the lives of some people forever.

The Senior Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo lauded the Auditor General and management of the service for their decision to conduct the various forms of audits and pledged government’s support for the service.

He was of the view that, accountability should be the hallmark in the management of public resources as the country sought to make progress in development.

Mr Osafo-Maafo indicated that, all public office holders should be accountable for their decisions, actions, inactions and general behaviour in the use of public resources.

According to him, the country could not rely only on competitive tender in order to get the best deal if the specifications were not technically quantitative advising that, tender advertisements should be more specific and detailed.

He called for collaboration between the government, the service and other stakeholders by finding ways to make the service the authority in fighting corruption as the country has been losing so much money through corruption.

The outgoing chairman of the Divisional Union, Mr Kwame Asare called for the total financial independence of the service and improved conditions of service of staff.

According to him, delayed salaries and untimely releases of funds for audit activities to staff, created challenges for them in administering their duties as they sometimes relied on clients for basic working logistics.

FROM FAUSTINA KWABEA OSEI, KUMASI

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